The invention is directed to a method for administering the priorities of routes in a telecommunications network. In a telecommunications network, for example according to the ITU-T Standard Q.751. 1 or Bellcore Standard GR-606-CORE, it is possible to define a set (signalling route set) of signalling paths or routes (signalling routes) between two signalling points A, B. All of these comprise different routes via which information can be transported orxe2x80x94for example, based on the prescription of a network operatorxe2x80x94are allowed to be transported from point A to point B. When a message must be transported from A to B, the telecommunications network selects a route from this set. A priority that can assume the values 1, 2, 3 . . . is thereby allocated to each route. The route with the highest priority, i.e. with the numerically lowest priority value, is selected for the transport of the message.
The allocation of priorities to the various routes of the set serves, first, for assuring an effective transmission in that short or high-performance routes have a higher priority assigned to them than longer routes or routes with lower performance. Another aspect that can play a part in the allocation of priorities are the transit costs through outside networks. When a vendor of telecommunications services cannot completely set up a requested connection within his own network, then he will preferably conduct messages via those routes that incur the lowest transit costs. These costs can change on short notice due to the competition of the vendors with one another. In such a case, there is an urgent need to be able to quickly and efficiently modify the priorities of the individual routes of the set.
For this purpose, the aforementioned ITU-T standard defines requests with which routes can be generated, configured or deleted. These requests are referred to below as xe2x80x9cCREATExe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cSETxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cDELETExe2x80x9d. It is self-evident that requests having the same effects can also be implemented in telecommunications systems that do not correspond to this ITU-T standard.
These requests have a number of attributes, including the identity of the route, the priority value and the priority mode. The identity of the route is an ordering number that is defined when a route is generated by xe2x80x9cCREATExe2x80x9d and that is employed by the requests xe2x80x9cSETxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cDELETExe2x80x9d in order to reference a route to be manipulated.
There are four different priority modes, namely xe2x80x9cEQUALxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cINSERTxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cEXCHANGE_SINGLExe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cEXCHANGE_GROUPxe2x80x9d. These priority modes define the effects that the addition (by CREATE) or reconfiguration (by SET) of a route has on a route set. When the priority mode is xe2x80x9cEQUALxe2x80x9d, then the new route is added to those already existing with the same priority of the route set. Given employment of the priority mode xe2x80x9cINSERTxe2x80x9d, the newly created or reconfigured route displaces already existing routes with the same or a higher priority value onto a lower priority, i.e. the priority value of the xe2x80x9cdisplacedxe2x80x9d is incremented. When the priority is modified with the EXCHANGE priority mode onto a target value that is established at a plurality of routes of the route set, then all of these receive the previous priority value of the route reconfigured by the request. In the case of the xe2x80x9cEXCHANGE_SINGLExe2x80x9d priority mode, only the priority of the route specified in the request is modified to the target value; in the case of xe2x80x9cEXCHANGE_GROUPxe2x80x9d, the priorities of all routes that have the same initial priority value as the route specified in the request are modified to the target value thereof.
The handling of these requests is often extremely burdensome, particularly given extensive route sets, since it is not possible to recognize without further ado with what requests an actual condition of the priority values of the routes of the route set can be efficiently converted into a given target condition. An algorithm has not yet been found that allows the commands that allow the one to be converted into the other for a given actual condition and a given target condition, so that a manual reprogramming by an operator has previously been necessary for administering the priorities of the routes in every individual case.
It is therefore an object of the invention to specify a method for the administration of the priorities of these routes that can be fully automatically implemented and with which an arbitrary actual condition can be converted into an arbitrary target condition.
This object is achieved in that a request for defining its priority value is implemented for each route defined in the target condition that has one of the priority modes xe2x80x9cEQUALxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cINSERTxe2x80x9d; that the requests are executed in the sequence of decreasing priority; and that the priority mode xe2x80x9cEQUALxe2x80x9d is selected for one of these requests for fixing a given priority value when a request for fixing on the same priority value has already been previously implemented.
Preferably, the xe2x80x9cINSERTxe2x80x9d priority mode is employed for the respective first request for fixing on a given priority value.
The employment of the EXCHANGE priority mode can thus be completely foregone. The number of requests required for producing an arbitrary target condition is no greater than the number of routes in the route set.
Further features and advantages of the invention derive from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the Figures.